Blake Griffin

When I was younger, much younger, I used to consider myself a fairly athletic guy. Played competitive volleyball and could hang when I hooped at most courts. Then the Summer of ’96 happened. I was playing tackle football, when one of the guys brought his friend to play. The new guy was a third string cornerback for the University of Maryland and he said, “No tackle for me guys. Just two-hand touch.” Didn’t matter because no one could get one hand on the guy. Ok, I’m exaggerating. One hand was possible, but two hands? Fuggetaboutit. 3rd stringer for a Division 1 college team. I couldn’t even imagine the level of what a professional player would be at. Which brings me to TJ McConnell. Myself and many others clown him that he should be playing at the YMCA, but let’s not forget that he’s in the top 1% of ballers on the planet. Last night, he reminded us all as he messed around.

PTS

REB

AST

STL

BLK

TOV

3PT

FG

FT

10

10

11

6

0

2

0

5/11

0

Played 37 minutes off the bench. The last time TJ received 30 minutes of run in a game was on January 20th. More than likely, TJ will get around 24 minutes a game, but does have the capacity to contribute across the board. Just don’t expect 6 steals and for him to mess around on a nightly basis. More often than not, I’m going to talk about his hair. Every once in a while, though, he’s going to remind us that it’s fun to stay at the YMTJ.

If you’re a loyal reader, you know my weekly calendar consists of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Rondae. Unfortunately, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson has been out six games due to injury and wasn’t the model of consistency when he did play. Of all the things in this world that you want consistency from, the calendar has to be top 3, right? The other two would have to be the effort played on defense by the squad you root for and the lack of lag when streaming something online. The All-Star game is scheduled for Sunday, February 18th. What if the calendar shows it to be on Monday one day then Friday the next? With the proliferation of digital calendars, I forsee this to be a huge problem in the future. Address me as futurist Son from now on. Anyways, the way Andre Drummond has been playing recently, everday should be called Dre Day. Last night, he went:

PTS

REB

AST

STL

BLK

TOV

3PT

FG

FT

17

27

2

3

2

1

0

5/17

7/10

He’s had eight straight double-dubs, with two of those being 20/20 and one 30/20. Outside of downtowners and free throws, Dre has literally stuffed the stat sheet, as there has not been one bagel in any category. Borderline top 5 player over the past eight games. Everyday is Dre Day.

The Player Rater is a tool to evaluate the performance of a player with only one number. This is not a perfect tool and will not guarantee victory in fantasy, but this is useful to help improve and evaluate your team.

In each category of scoring, a number is calculated to represent the average total in that category. If a player has the average, his rating in that category is 0.00. The numbers represent how much a player is above or below the average.

If the rating is positive, that player is an above-average fantasy player in that category. If the rating is negative that player is below-average. The sum of all ratings in each category gives us a number (the PR), and then we rank the players accordingly.

I have not included turnovers, as the evaluation in PR is very controversial in my opinion, so if you’re in a league with turnovers, you must keep in mind this.

The City of Detroit has long been the s**thole of America. High crime. Low tax base. Corruption. Racial tension. Having the auto industry shut down plants and move them to other areas certainly didn’t help. One of my favorite movies of all-time, The Kentucky Fried Movie, put it best.

I remember during the housing crash, I’d log onto sites like Trulia, Zillow, and Redfin, to see the true carnage. There were places in Detroit that you could buy for under $1000. Insane. Not all was bad, though. The Pistons teams of the late-80s, early-90s brought bling and optimism. Yes, they were the Bad Boys but bad equaled good in that context. Could history be repeating itself? Since Blake Griffin was acquired by the Pistons, the team has rattled of four straight wins. His presence has been so immense that the team gets a win even when he doesn’t play. Last night, Blake went:

PTS

REB

AST

STL

BLK

TOV

3PT

FG

FT

21

9

6

0

0

3

3/7

9/20

0

Since arriving in Detroit, Blake is playing 36 minutes, scoring 20 points, grabbing 9.5 boards, dishing out 6 dimes, blocking 1, and stealing 0.5. It’s only been a three game sample, but things are looking on the up and up. The cheapest house that I can find on Zillow in the Detroit area for a 4bds, 1 ba, 1,777 sqft is $5,900. That’s progress.

When Blake Griffin was traded to the Detroit Pistons there were a lot of concerns. In the interest of time I will stick to just those relevant to fantasy basketball. Ok, actually that only leaves one major concern: Would Andre Drummond continue to be the rebounding machine he was prior to the arrival of the Kia-jumping, oft-injured, polarizing, human-highlight film come-again Blake Griffin?

Yes, the answer is yes. The dude is a beast. He sucks in rebounds like black holes suck in matter. And while black holes spit out gamma rays, Andre Drummond spits out sick slash lines. Forget the 3-point shooting, point-forward, stretch-four big men we are calling unicorns. The true unicorns are the old-school low-post bangers like Drummond, who even Charles Oakley would agree, could hang during any era of NBA basketball.

The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) film rating system has undergone numerous changes over the years. In 1968, there was G (general audiences), M (mature audiences), R (restricted), and X (under 16 not admitted). After a few years, the ages for R and X were raised from 16 to 17 years old. Then, a GP (parental guidance suggested) was added. That was subsequently changed to PG. Then PG-13 was added because of complaints about violence in certain PG movies. X was then changed to NC-17. Ai yai yai! My freaking head hurts. You know what wasn’t confusing? The performance from Paul George, aka PG-13, last night.

PTS

REB

AST

STL

BLK

TOV

3PT

FG

FT

43

5

5

2

0

1

5/8

19/26

0

A 40-burger on 73% shooting without one free throw attempt! Simply amazing. Anyways, since coming to OKC, the rebounds and assists are down, but the 3.1 3s on 7.4 attempts and 2.2 steals are career-highs! Don’t get hurt and looking forward to seeing you in Los Angeles next year, Paul. LA. Hollywood. MPAA. PG-13. It just fits too well.

The Player Rater is a tool to evaluate the performance of a player with only one number. This is not a perfect tool and will not guarantee victory in fantasy, but this is useful to help improve and evaluate your team.

In each category of scoring, a number is calculated to represent the average total in that category. If a player has the average, his rating in that category is 0.00. The numbers represent how much a player is above or below the average.

If the rating is positive, that player is an above-average fantasy player in that category. If the rating is negative that player is below-average. The sum of all ratings in each category gives us a number (the PR), and then we rank the players accordingly.

I have not included turnovers, as the evaluation in PR is very controversial in my opinion, so if you’re in a league with turnovers, you must keep in mind this.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last week (in which case I’m interested to know how you manage), you have heard the news about the Blake Griffin trade. For those aforementioned people who don’t, here is the summary:

Clippers get: Tobias Harris, Avery Bradley, a first round pick, a second round pick and the always charming Boban Marjanovic

I would love to read your thoughts down in the comments about who won the trade. My first instinct was that it all depends on Blake’s health and on how well he will mesh with Andre Drummond. Another conclusion that can be derived from the trade is that loyalty is dead in the NBA. Remember all the efforts the Clippers made to convince Blake to re-sign, which included filling the court with his photos and even raising an actual banner with his name into the rafters as a sign of their future devotion??

As always, let’s take a quick look at last week’s suggestions and how they performed. The Spurs duo of Dejounte Murray and Kyle Anderson were not very impressive, but their minutes are safe and will only improve moving forward. Murray is even averaging an absurd 8.6 rebounds in the last eight games. The Sacramento duo of Bogdan Bogdanovic and Buddy Hield, on the other hand, were not so hot as only one of them is having a good game each night. At least the Kings are sticking to their veteran-resting plan for now… Finally, Ersan Ilyasova’s minutes continue to trend in the wrong direction, but you can still get some value if you trade him right now…

Moving on to the new suggestions, this will be a heavy “Buy” week as injuries and the aforementioned trade have created opportunities for more players to become fantasy relevant.

The name Reggie brings a few players to mind. Reggie Jackson, Reggie Smith, and of course, Reggie Miller. That awkward, yet smooth, combo of grace and precision known as a shooting form. Reggie Miller is one of the greatest shooters of all time. 6’ 7″ shooting guard, able to rise up (barely) above the smaller defender to snap the net with a perfect rotation. Anyone who averaged 1.8 3PM for their career before 2008 is basically a champion, especially considering that his 4.7 attempts per game for his career is a joke these days. So what’s in a name? The name Reggie.

Hello everyone! Craig, Brent, and Son join me once again and we had plenty to talk about. The Blake Griffin trade starts us off and there are plenty of angles to look at. What do we think about the Clippers deciding to rebuild? How about the Pistons going all-in on this roster? Does anyone get a boost in fantasy? We hit on all of these things and more before we transition to DeMarcus Cousins’ devastating Achilles injury. Where do the Pelicans go from here, both short and long term? Spoiler: a few of us think it’s going to get ugly. If we were the GM of the Pelicans, what would we do now? Also, what kind of deal is Cousins looking at over the summer being an unrestricted free agent? We wrap things up by talking about the Wizards without John Wall and how the Grizzlies will look for the rest of the season without Mike Conley, both in real life and from a fantasy perspective. Please join us for the latest edition of the Razzball Basketball Podcast!